Herodotus' fourteenth logos: beginning of the Ionian revolt

Beginning of the Ionian Revolt; affairs in Greece
(5.28-55)

In the next logos Herodotus explains how the Ionian Greeks living
in the Achaemenid
empire revolt against Darius.
He considers this a disaster, caused by the short-sighted and egoistical
behavior of several Greek protégés of the great king. While
Histiaeus stays at the Persian court (above),
his home town Miletus -Ionia's main city- is ruled by his son-in-law Aristagoras,
who tries to add the Greek islands in the Aegean
Sea to the Achaememid empire and his own sphere of influence. He and the
Persian governor of Lydia,
Artaphernes,
join forces, but they fail to capture the most important island, Naxos.

Aristagoras does not wait until he has fallen in disfavor with Darius,
and decides to revolt against the great king. However, Herodotus knows
another story: Histiaeus, irked by his honorable detention, had sent a
trusted slave to Ionia, with the word 'revolt' tattooed on his scalp. Whatever
the true reason, the Ionian Greeks rebel. The pro-Persian leaders are seized,
democratic government is established, and preparations are made for the
war. The Milesian Hecataeus
of Miletus (the man responsible for the description of the hippopotamus;
above)
proposes to rely on the navy and to pay the marines from the temple treasury
of the Branchidae, an oracle that had received extraordinary gifts from
king Croesus.
This advise is ignored; instead, Aristagoras decides to ask for help from
Sparta, famous for its army.

Herodotus starts his description of Aristagoras' visit to Sparta with
a story about his host, king Cleomenes. We hear strange rumors about his
birth, learn that he was 'not quite right in his head' and understand that
his behavior caused great trouble in his country. His half-brother Dorieus,
who was unable to accept the fact that a madman was ruling Sparta, had
even gone off to Sicily.
This Cleomenes receives the Milesian envoy, who delivers a very long speech
about the glories of a war against Persia. (Herodotus digresses on the
size of the Achaemenid empire, describing the
Royal
road from Sardes to Susa.)
The king's laconic answer to Aristagoras' speech is that 'the proposal
to take the Spartans a three months' journey from the sea is a highly improper
one', and Aristagoras is requested to leave.

Comment

Naxos was the main island of the Cyclades archipelago. These islands -several
of which were rich in natural resources- were a kind of bridge to the Greek
mainland and a logical aim for Persian expansion. Aristagoras may have
been hoping for the ownership of the silver mines at Siphnos or the marble
quarries at Paros. The incident cannot be dated precisely, but belongs
to the closing years of the sixth century BCE.

The chronology of the events leading to the Ionian revolt is controversial,
but 499 is a good guess; Aristagoras' embassy to the Greek mainland may
have taken place in the winter of 499-498.

Herodotus' picture of Histiaeus may be
a shade too dark. In fact, the complete story about Histiaeus' behavior
in this logos and the following logoi is a bit strange. If
it was removed from The Histories, the remainder would be easier
to understand; it looks as if Herodotus had already written a consistent
account of the Ionian revolt, when he decided to add the stories about
Histiaeus.

It is very interesting to note that Herodotus writes at the beginning
of Book Six (as we will see below),
that Histiaeus claimed to have acted to prevent Darius from deporting the
Ionians. Herodotus says that this was a lie, but the story sounds very
plausible. In the ancient world, deportation was a common policy, as the
inhabitants of the Cyrenaica
had already found out (above) and those of
Eretria were to discover (below).

An interesting aspect of the fourteenth
logos
is Herodotus' story about the establishment of democratic government. As
we will see in the next
logos, the first experiment with this system had started only a
few years before in Athens.

From a strategic point of view, Hecataeus' advise to rely on the navy
was better than Aristagoras' idea to ask help from an army: the Ionian
cities had no depth of territory within which armies could maneuver, whereas
a strong navy could have kept the Phoenician ships (the backbone of the
Persian fleet) out of the Aegean Sea.

Sparta was famous for its well trained soldiers.
One of the peculiar characteristics of the constitution of this military
state was the fact that it had two kings. King Cleomenes ruled from about
520 until 491; as we will see below,
he managed to usurp the powers of a sole ruler, virtually eclipsing the
other king, Demaratus. After Cleomenes' death, Dorieus' younger brother
Leonidas (below) succeeded him and
the other dynasty regained its influence under Demaratus' relative Leotychides.

When Herodotus says that Cleomenes suffered from a mental disease, he
probably repeats hostile traditions that circulated in the families of
Leotychides and Leonidas. Cleomenes' answer to Aristagoras ('the proposal
to take the Spartans a three months' journey from the sea is a highly improper
one') betrays a very healthy judgment.

The Royal
road from Sardes to Susa is also known from Persian sources. At Persepolis,
several tablets
were found which refer to the system of horse changing; it was called pirradaziš.